About being a writer.

Being home, you are sure to run in to people from your past, and they're sure to ask you what you're doing these days. Similarly, you meet new people, maybe friends of your parents or acquaintances from the coffee shop you've curled up inside. These people will want to know what you do. When I tell these people I am a writer, they soon divide themselves into two categories. The first group is puzzled at such a vague and historically non-lucrative career choice and they look at me with a sense of pity in their eyes. "Oh, cool," they say. And I decide to leave it at that, because they aren't worth the trouble. The second group light up with enthusiasm and are excited to hear more. I like this group, clearly. But either way, both groups end up asking me the same follow-up question: What do you want to write about? And it's at this point that I fall apart and I say something like, "I don't know, a lot of things," or "Well right now I'm freelancing but I want to be a journalist." I feel cornered, because I don't know yet what I want to write about or what kind of a writer I am.

Last week two of my friends asked me that question and when I couldn't respond directly, they took it upon themselves to diagnose my writing style . I suppose they were accurate with their diagnosis, and I've been making a conscious effort to write every day, even when I don't want to, so I can better understand my own style and my own objectives. My friend Rick said that the way you write is the way you live your life, and the sooner you understand the way you write, the sooner both of those things will be easier to do. I do a lot of second guessing myself. I think something is a worth while thought and so I write it down and then I don't know where to go with it. Similarly, in life, I have a lot of lofty ideas and I pitch them to myself and others and then don't know where to go with them.

Maybe when I write something that makes me happy I'll know how to do things in life that make me happy. Maybe when I write something that takes me somewhere I'll go somewhere in life.

Just a thought.